A sensitive fluorometric method for the determination of arginine using 9,10-phenanthrenequinone

The reagent 9,10-phenanthrenequinone has been shown to react with free arginine or with arginine residues within proteins to produce a compound whose fluorescence can be used to quantitatively determine submicrogram amounts of arginine. The assay procedure, which is simple, convenient, and suitable for automation, is performed by mixing a slight excess of phenanthrenequinone with the sample at high pH followed by acidification to produce the fluorescence. None of the commonly occurring amino acids were found to interfere with the analysis. Several commonly used buffers and organic solvents also did not interfere. The arginine content of intact proteins was accurately determined by this procedure with only microgram quantities of protein required. The method is compared with other commonly used procedures for arginine and protein determination.